#being heumann

EXCLUSIVE: Dylan O’Brien (upcoming Twinless) is set to star alongside Ruth Madeley and Mark Ruffalo in Being Heumann, Apple‘s adaptation of the bestselling memoir from disability activist Judy Heumann.

In the film from CODA Oscar winner Siân Heder, O’Brien will play Evan White, one of the few reporters covering the San Francisco disability rights protests at the heart of the story. Madeley plays the title role, as previously announced, with Ruffalo playing Joseph Califano, the U.S. Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare under President Jimmy Carter, who was initially reluctant to sign off on civil rights legislation affecting the disabled community.

Being Heumann follows Heumann as she leads over a hundred disabled people to take over the San Francisco Federal Building, kicking off a 28-day sit-in in 1977. The protestors quickly form a tightly bound community, refusing to leave until the government enforces section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, which required all federal spaces to become accessible.

- Being Heumann by Judy Heumann

This International Women’s Day , remember the intersections of disability and gender.

Remember how these identities intersect with race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, etc.

Remember disabled women.

ALL disabled women.

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Siân Heder is adapting the film to direct. Ali Stroker, the first actress who uses a wheelchair for mobility to appear on Broadway and the first to win a Tony for her work in Oklahoma, is being eyed to star.